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Costs of winding up RL club revealed

By Alan Irving

Last updated at 11:22, Thursday, 05 April 2012

WHITEHAVEN Rugby League Club will be out of administration in three months’ time.

But final reports released this week show that the costs of winding up the old club proved higher than its worth. Fees charged by administrators RSM Tenon alone racked up to nearly £40,000 whereas Whitehaven RLFC was sold for £27,500 after entering administration in 2010.

Legal fees for the sale amounted to more than £14,000 and it also cost £3,800 to value the club’s assets. RSM Tenon has written off half its own costs because there was nothing left to cover it.

The following amounts were owed: £70,876 to trades and expense creditors, £22,500 to employees, £22,517 to club directors, £117,425 to banks/institutions, an estimated £80,000 to the Inland Revenue and £28,000 which was an advance from the Rugby Football League.

From the debts, the only money to be paid was £976.18, a sum to the Government which in return met employees wages and holiday pay from the Redundancy Payments Scheme. The Government itself received a dividend of 4p in the pound, adding up to £976.

Whitehaven RLFC was sold by the administrators to ‘Whitehaven 2010’ comprising former chairman Dick Raaz and directors Ralph Calvin (the new club’s chairman) and Michael Wood. Included in the sale price of £27,500 was £20,000 for goodwill, £6,000 for plant, equipment, fixtures and fittings along with £1,497 for stock.

RSM has written off practically half of its own administration costs of £39,530. The rest has been realised from assets. Some £11,846 was owed to the club at the time it went into administration.

Have your say

Only SL hope is for a strong enough personality to bang heads together and form the West Cumbrian Mountain Men as a merged entity...but I can't think of a suitable personality...maybe Town could use the new stadium on alternate weekends as a first step.

Posted by Dave Siddall on
16 April 2012 at 19:43

Debts of nearly a third of a million?? It does beg the question why on earth are they ploughing millions in to a new stadium when the business model clearly doesn't work. Professional and semi professional rugby league in the UK cannot continue under the current franchise format as clubs are continually having to be bailed out by the RFL (just look at Bradford Bulls last week and they regularly play in front of crowds of 10,000+ at Odsal). I know that the new stadium has been chosen as a 2013 World Cup venue, however, it is unrealistic to assume that Scotland, Italy and Tonga will bring any supporters so the crowd will be made up solely of locals and will be sparse at best. West Cumbria has a proud history of rugby league, however, I believe that it's just a matter of time before administration rolls round again.